Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces. ~Marcel Proust

Sunday, August 24, 2014

The Consent of the Governed- The Sunday Collage

The Declaration of Independence is a relatively simple and well written document which was signed by 56 men. There are a couple of opening paragraphs, a giant list of grievances, and then a closing paragraph right above their signatures. Here then, are the opening paragraphs. Please pay close attention to the second one.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to
right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the
patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be
submitted to a candid world.

Among other things, the Founders were upset that they had been ordered to pay (paltry by today's standards) 3% taxes by a King on a completely different continent. Taxation without representation.

So what representation do we have?

When your government ignores the will of the people and sets about the task of imposing monumental taxes and seizing better than 1/2 of all of your income- that isn't a reasonable tax- that is thievery.

That is not consent. Nobody has consented to that.

In America, a majority of us were against Obamacare. Not only did we fail to give our government consent, but they imposed this tax on us. Then they had it rubber stamped- as though the Supreme Court- was the final say on the matter.

The final say occurs when the people of America- the ones who are getting fleeced- have had enough. I am one of those people.

I am being governed by a golfing President mired in at least 5 scandals, an Attorney General who is clearly failing to do his job on multiple fronts, and a Congress bought and paid for by corporate interests- a Congress whose members offer no help (and then only to rich crony capitalists) help that is implied just so long as you bring a large checkbook to help them get re-elected. Throw in an unelected, privately owned Federal Reserve Bank which refuses to be audited and which counterfeits our currency at will.... and voila!

That is our current governance.

I didn't consent to any of that. I want a President that represents "we the people" instead of special interests like health care insurers, bankers, or other corporate interests. An Attorney General who enforces the law EQUALLY. A Congress that is term limited, reformed, and who will work on behalf of the millions of us- the vast majority- who are not being represented at all. I want a national currency, issued by our government and limited in quantity and thus quality, and I want the Federal Reserve as it stands now-abolished.

Government never sits down and negotiates. It never thinks it has to. Government is the study of incremental ism, the slow erosion of individual freedoms whereby governments confiscate your wealth, your liberty, and your way of life. They do it bit by bit, slowly, so that nobody becomes immediately aware.When you finally realize that they have literally stolen and confiscated everything you possess it's often too late. I think we are pretty close to that now.

Our government doesn't negotiate. They arm themselves. Have you noticed all of the military police uniforms, military armament, M-16's or AR-15's, tactical vehicles and MRAPS? Governments don't always believe they have the consent of the governed- rather they think that is un neccessary. Instead, they believe they have the upper hand, the power, and the might to impose their will on you.

It has begun. They know what's coming. They are arming themselves and they are going to call on those police agencies they have armed. They are going to label dissenters as criminals like they have Edward Snowden. They have the capability to spy on everyone. They are going to confiscate every last bit of wealth that we have while trying desperately to hold on to their power because governments do not negotiate with the governed. Negotiations only occur after a great deal of bloodshed. The founders knew this. They knew when they signed that document that the King would view every one of them as traitors and show them no mercy.

They had courage back then. Or at least the ability to understand that the King really didn't give two shits about having the consent of the governed.

I don't think there is any better example of arbitrary and capricious government than the one we have now. It is interesting to watch this unfold, week after week. I am kind of proud of the fact that I never fell for the government's bribes. I didn't participate in SWAT teams- military style clothing- and I certainly wouldn't have taken or tried to use an MRAP. I was amazed at the amount of pressure my peers exerted on me to participate- they truly make you feel like an outsider when you don't- and they weren't afraid to call you various names. In the Treasure Valley- every city thinks they have to have their own SWAT team and MRAP. It is a horrific waste of taxpayer money because those services are seldom needed and they are duplicated everywhere.

One day all of that is going to be used against honorable- but fed up people. All the pieces are in place now. The government isn't going to negotiate. It isn't going to take responsibility for a 60 trillion dollar debt (all liabilities) or a health care system that is collapsing in front of us- which was never much more than a half assed attempt by the democrats to buy votes. I am actually a little worried about how our country is going to look 50 years from now.

8 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"A little worried about how our country will look 50 years from now". Fifty years? Man I don't think we have Fifty day's. The way these neo-con assholes are conducting this shit show in Ukraine and the need to get a war going. We will all be lucky if we survive at all. We are in some pretty shit now and there is no one and I mean no one to pull our asses out.

There won't be a United States 50 years from now, brother. The country will either be split up into a bunch of smaller countries or it will be nuked back to the stone age by Islamofacist shitheads who plant bombs in every major city and blow them all up at once.

Brian, this is what those 56 men were up to when they penned that Declaration; Excerpt out of Emmerich de Vattels 1750 book, The Law of Nations; Read it carefully; Then ask yourself, Who am I?

"The law of nations is the law of sovereigns. It is principally for them, and for their ministers, that it ought to be written. All mankind are indeed interested in it; and, in a free country, the study of its maxims is a proper employment for every citizen; but it would be of little consequence to impart the knowledge of it only to private individuals, who are not called to the councils of nations, and who have no influence in directing the public measures. If the conductors of slates, if all those who are employed in public affairs, condescended to apply seriously to the study of a science which ought to be their law, and, as it were, the compass by which to steer their course, what happy effects might we not expect from a good treatise on the law of nations! We every day feel the advantages of a good body of laws in civil society: — the law of nations is, in point of importance, as much superior to the civil law, as the proceedings of nations and sovereigns are more momentous in their consequences than those of private persons…."

"...But fatal experience too plainly proves how little regard those who are at the head of affairs pay to the dictates of justice, in conjunctures where they hope to find their advantage. Satisfied with bestowing their attention on a system of politics which is often false, since often unjust, the generality of them think they have done enough when they have thoroughly studied that. Nevertheless, we may truly apply to states a maxim which has long been acknowledged as true with respect to individuals, — that the best and safest policy is that which is founded on virtue. Cicero, as a great master in the art of government as in eloquence and philosophy, does not content himself with rejecting the vulgar maxim, that "a state cannot be happily governed without committing injustice;" he even proceeds so far as to lay down the very reverse of the proposition as an invariable truth, and maintains, that "without a strict attention to the most rigid justice, public affairs cannot be advantageously administered."

Providence occasionally bestows on the world kings and ministers whose minds are impressed with this great truth. Let us not renounce the pleasing hope that the number of those wise conductors of nations will one day be multiplied; and in the interim let us, each in his own sphere, exert our best efforts to accelerate the happy period." ~[Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations]

"...the bill of rights tells you, "that all power of suspending law, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without the consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised." This tells us that there can be no suspension of government or laws without our own consent; yet this Constitution can counteract and suspend any of our laws that contravene its oppressive operation; for they have the power of direct taxation, which suspends our bill of rights; and it is expressly provided that they can make all laws necessary for carrying their powers into execution; and it is declared paramount to the laws and constitutions of the states."

"Consider how the only remaining defence we have left is destroyed in this manner. Besides the expenses of maintaining the Senate and other house in as much splendor as they please, there is to be a great and mighty President, with very extensive powers—the powers of a king. He is to be supported in extravagant magnificence; so that the whole of our property may be taken by this American government, by laying what taxes they please, giving themselves what salaries they please, and suspending our laws at their pleasure."